


Endless Lines of Eternity

by queenofthewips (lilithduvare)



Series: Endless [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Attempt at Humor, Body Dysphoria, Cuddling, Dehumanization, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Friendship Boundaries, Hunting and Preparing Meat, Idiotic Boys, Living in a Cave, M/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Pining, Self-Hatred, Serious Injuries, Slow Burn, Stucky Big Bang 2016, Supersoldier Serum, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-07-26 15:55:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7580632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithduvare/pseuds/queenofthewips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Surviving was never an option.<br/>Yet, against all odds, here they are in the middle of nowhere, broken and battered.<br/>They survived and now they have to relearn how to live.<br/>With their guilt.<br/>With their nightmares.<br/>With their feelings for each other.</p><p>Steve doesn't decide to jump after Bucky when he falls off the train. He just does it and changes the course of time with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Falling

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing Stucky and I loved every second of it. This story is the first installment of a story told in five parts and my piece for Stucky Big Bang 2016. I hope you will find as much enjoyment in reading as I did in writing it.
> 
> I would like to thank the wonderful people who helped me bring this story to life:  
> [jinlinli](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jinlinli/pseuds/jinlinli) my wonderful beta  
> [CD](https://comedicdrama.tumblr.com/) my future virtual husband  
> [SuperheroResin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/superheroresin/pseuds/superheroresin) who cheered me on  
> [Sula](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rohkeutta/pseuds/rohkeutta>rohkeutta</a>%20who%20was%20amazing%20and%20made%20the%20perfect%20timeline%20for%20the%20series%20\(spoilers%20ahead\)<br%20/>%0ADicky%20who%20is%20my%20official%20artist%20for%20the%20big%20bang%20and%20whose%20art%20will%20appear%20in%20chapter%20two<br%20/>%0A<a%20href=) whose art inspires me to try harder  
> Dicky my official Big Bang artist whose art you will see in chapter two  
> [Kat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DustAddsCharacter/pseuds/DustAddsCharacter) without whom the hunting in this fic would have been 100% artistic freedom and 0% reality  
> [Fox](http://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackfox/pseuds/littleblackfox) and Banana who are amazing at support
> 
> and all the wonderful people from the Bucky Rogers Chat, you guys are the best. <3
> 
> Update: August 11: I decided to break the two long chapters into 6 or 7 longer ones. The first chapter will be posted again in 3 smaller parts, so the second chapter will start at chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check out the amazing [Timeline](http://rohkeutta.tumblr.com/post/147940469294/stucky-big-bang-2016-endless-lines-of-eternity) Rohkeutta has made for my fic.
> 
> Reviews and kudos are always welcome. Also feel free to visit [my Tumblr](http://queenofthewips.tumblr.com) and follow me for Stucky and the occasional nutrition and linguistic ramblings.

** **

**Chapter 1 - Falling**

Fear curls around Steve’s heart like an ice kissed chain, sinking its barbed links into him with searing ruthlessness. He incapacitates the Hydra guard in a single move then rushes to the gaping hole in the side of the wagon. His heart comes to a screeching halt at the sight of Bucky hanging off a half-blown off handlebar. Steve crawls after him without a second thought, reaching out despite knowing it’s in vain. Still, he refuses to give up on his best friend and refuses to even consider an option where he cannot pull Bucky back.

  
The freezing Alpine air is clawing into his face, his words probably lost in the enraged screams of the wind, but he still yells Bucky’s name with all he has, reassuring and pleading at the same time. The whites of Bucky’s eyes stand out starkly against the darkness of his pupils as terror devours his irises. He yells back something that gets stolen by the howling rush, but it’s still enough for Steve to lean forward and try to closing the distance between them.

  
Bucky reaches out, the move tentative at best, and their fingers almost graze when the rail wobbles, the busted metal giving away under Bucky’s weight and the damage it sustained. Time slows to near stillness as Steve watches Bucky tip backwards, his body taken over by the evil powers of gravity, with Bucky’s name dead in his throat. His brain cannot process what he is seeing, and he just cannot believe the tragedy before his eyes is real.

  
Maybe it’s this disbelief or maybe it’s a much deeper, instinctual part of his very being that propels him to leap after Bucky instead of allowing him to shut down in grief. The ice laced air cuts into his eyes like a sizzling knife, nearly blinding him, but he us too focused on Bucky’s flailing form gaining momentum beneath him to close them. Twisting his own body into a straight backed diving position for maximum speed, he silently begs the gap between their bodies to close faster and ignores the vicious gloating voice laughing in his ear.

  
Free falling without a parachute should be paralyzing with the inevitability of death, however, there is only static and the panicked chant of Bucky’s name filling his thoughts. Death has no hold over him, hasn’t had since maybe the second time his useless, underdeveloped body almost succumbed to the onslaught of illness that never ceased its siege, but Bucky doesn’t deserve such fate. He deserves to have a happy fulfilling life with one of the many girls who used to flock around him and look at him with stars in their eyes. He deserves to go home and the chance to forget the horrors he had to live through because of a war he wanted no part of, yet still stayed even after spending months in captivity because of Steve’s selfishness. Steve owes him more than he can ever repay. Still, even as he reaches out to snag the billowing edge of Bucky’s coat, he hopes that laying down his life for his best friend will at least slightly atone for his blind idealism and thoughtless pride.

  
It feels nothing short of a miracle when he manages to wrap both of his arms around Bucky, half thankful and half terrified that he seemingly lost his consciousness. He manages to turn around in a way that allows his body to curl around Bucky’s limp form and hopefully shield him from the impact. He cannot be sure it will be enough to save Bucky’s life, but a whispered prayer to a God he isn’t sure he believes in anymore and the sacrificial offering of his own life are the only things he can lay down before the fates as they hit the tight packed snow on the ground and the world is devoured by a momentary flash of agony, then endless lines of darkness.

  
~ ~ ~

  
The twinkling yellow gaze of millions of invisible demons are laughing at the eternal damnation of the paltry, twisted embodiment of his soul when Steve opens bleary eyes. He isn’t surprised that hell welcomes him with nothing but cut-glass torment and the fever brought ice-cold that bites into his bones for the sins he never repented for in his life. His lungs have reverted back to their original form alongside with the rest of his body, punishing him with their own kind of torture of robbing him of all semblances of air that makes him feel like he is on the verge of suffocating from the weight on his chest. Then again, the dead don’t need to breathe, so it must be a ghost finding its way out of the jungle of his carefully forgotten fears.

  
He closes his eyes.

  
There is pain… familiar and sharp… legs broken… Is he fifteen again, fighting bullies and secretly hoping Bucky will find him in time?

  
A stab in his spine like barbed wire… But where is the enemy?

  
His leg twitches under a strange pressure pinning his lower body to the frozen ground of hell… Why is he crying if he’s dead?

  
His chest constricts… he’s choking on something thick and coppery that tastes like pneumonia… Where is his–– Bucky? Who will save him from dying this time?

  
No one… No one saved him– No one was there.

  
He’s alone… in Hell.

Steve turns his head to the right too fast in his haste to get rid of the vile tasting substance that coats his lips in warm stickiness, and bright spots instantly swarm his already clouded vision when he opens his eyes.

For the fracture of a second, all he can see is the red spotted cotton of his mother’s nightgown. He blinks sluggishly... Is hell punishing him for not being a better son?

Another wet cough wracks his body, and suddenly the fire burning in his brain erupts like a volcano, flooding his senses with scorching lava… Or for always being a burden?

He chokes on a scream and wants to curl in on himself, but the dead weight on his lower body is still pinning him to the ground… Why can’t it all just end?

He has no idea how much time passes with him lying on his back, eyes squeezed shut, and his brain battling with his lungs over the necessity of breathing. He is waiting. Waiting for the demons in the sky to descend upon him and feast on his broken soul and destroy him for being a traitor, a murderer, a thief, a liar — a selfish marionette on the blood splattered strings of patriotism. It’s probably for the best that he died, otherwise they would come for him and encase him in the manacles of their higher than ever expectations. They would be like vultures, like the demons hovering over his head, happily devouring the carcass of his betrayal and using the bony remains as their pawn.

A guttural laugh bubbles up in his throat, forcing him to spew some more of that warm, cloying liquid…

Blood.

Except, it can’t be. He is dead... Then why is it so hard to breathe?

Still, even through the torture of letting his imaginary lungs expand, he can feel air inflate his mangled, sickly chest more easily with each raspy drag of breath. Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking, a last, hysterical attempt at clinging to the living world. Except, as the seconds or maybe eons pass, the inferno consuming his very being slowly begins to settle into a dull simmering shadow on the edge of awareness. It leaves him with the numbness of a fathomless loss he can almost liken to the moment Colonel Phillips told him Bucky was dead.

His last thought is being thankful that, this time, Bucky is alive and safely rescued by their comrades before it’s stolen by the analgesic thrum of silence.

~ ~ ~

The demons and the darkness are replaced by the balsamic caress of sunlight when Steve regains consciousness the second time. His eyelids are heavy, his head filled with cotton, and for a moment he thinks everything that happened in the last two years was but a fever dream induced by yet another episode of pneumonia. His aching bones and the soreness in his chest only seem to support that theory, making Steve bite back a groan in fear of waking Bucky whose weight is pinning him to his sweat soaked, clammy board of a mattress serving as their bed. And for that single moment, his heart swells with brash anticipation over telling Bucky all about his dream. He can already hear Bucky’s fond laughter and feel callused fingers brush against his scalp when Bucky ruffles his hair as he calls him a dopey punk.  
But then he manages to pry his eyes open fully, completely unprepared for the tidal wave of disappointment that crashes over him when instead of Bucky’s mop of hair he’s met by verdant buds of grass soaking up early morning dew and arching towards the sun. The only thing disturbing the peaceful waking of nature around him is his own harsh wheezing and the blood pounding in his ears. He turns his head, ignoring the twinge in his spine, and stares up at the bright blue sky. His memories are little more than distorted puzzle pieces as he tries to remember what happened.

The horrifying stench of weeks old blood, the sickening blue of a killing light, and the phoenix shades of fire are all just flashes in his mind, slipping through his grasp before he could process them and understand the urgency they bring with them. He can hear the distant rasp of lightning fast wheels on frost slicked tracks, and the despair in his own voice as he’s screaming a name—

Bucky!

The way all of his oddly bruised muscles snap to attention leaves Steve breathless, but he still struggles to grasp the heaviness keeping his lower body immobile.  
Bucky. He needs to fine Bucky and make sure he is fine. That he survived.

_“He didn’t.”_ The gloating whisper Steve can vaguely recall poisoning his mind with the ugly truth of the future back on the train has returned with vengeance. Its murmuring is acidic sweet, declaring his failure and uselessness.

It takes heroic effort to lift his head off the ground, the twinge in his back turning into a stab of pain instantly, but Steve couldn’t care less about his body’s wretched state. Bucky could be anywhere, dying or already—no. Bucky is fine. Bucky is alive. He doesn’t care about the hateful little voice that’s crooning in his ear that months or maybe even years must have passed since their fall. And that no human would survive without food and water even if they survived the ice. It’s all just a lie. A figment of his imagination. It has to be.

He doesn’t remember closing his eyes or the burning that’s spreading behind them, but when he opens them his head is raised inches off the lush grass surrounding his body and he’s staring down at the lump of an achingly familiar blue coat and messy brown strands of hair.

_‘It should be smooth… neat… perfect,’_ he thinks but the relief that floods him at the sight siphons away all his doubt a moment later. His head drops back on the ground, the dull thud of it not even registering, all his energy concentrated on navigating his lead weight, shaking fingers over to Bucky’s frighteningly cold neck.

Steve tries to anchor himself to the texture of Bucky’s soft hair that is brushing against the side of his hand, instead of letting go and falling into the chaotic swirls of fear left by his stuttering breath, the rushing blood in his ears, and the iron fist squeezing his chest beyond recognition. As the seconds pass without finding anything but smooth coolness, however, it becomes increasingly hard to stay even remotely collected. Clinging to the sheer stubbornness that never let him give up on even when his own body turned against him, he keeps his fingertips pressed tightly against the spot where Bucky’s pulse point should be, counting the ticks of his own scrambling heart.

Steve’s tongue brushes over his sandpapery, cracked lips when his attempt at forming words prove to be futile, tasting the bitter copper of old blood. He is suddenly back in the deepest pits of hell, throwing up his lungs and being watched by the greedy eyes of a million devils with nowhere to go… dead… alone… dead… Nothing but silence.

And cold.

_Thump._

Steve’s chest fills with a hitched mouthful of life, chasing away the darkness and the demons dancing before his eyes, because there, right under the fleshy pad of his index finger, a tiny little flutter breaks Bucky’s absolute stillness.

Bucky is alive… Alive. Alive… Is he? What if it’s just his mind playing tricks on him? He’d never survive the crippling possibility… to lose Bucky for a second… third time…

No.

Not possible.

Not after single-handedly invading a Nazi factory to save Bucky from the sick, depraved snare of Hydra’s too many heads. Not after watching him fall from that damned train and jumping after him without thinking about the consequences. Not after…

Steve loses his thought and sinks into that terrifying silence that fell over them once again. He’s waiting. Waiting for a sign from… God? His mother? The Devil? Anyone with power over their lives… to show him mercy in one way or another. Numbers fail him, and he sinks into the timid stillness of all the new life around them, his fingers not straying an inch from their guarding post.

Their future lies under his and Bucky’s fragile skin… he wants to hope, but it was always Bucky who was full of conviction… faith of a better life. It was always Bucky who dreamed of wealth… romance… fame. Good things. Like Steve being worth more than he was. Worth fighting for. Worth… living for. Even when there was nothing to believe in, and saw him when he was nothing but stripes and stars.

Bucky Barnes was––no is the world… the universe… everything. He is Steve’s… Steve’s.

The vast blue canvas stretches endlessly above him, embracing him… a comfort. Seconds… years… centuries passes on the back of white clouds, unfathomable. Secretive. Coy. And Steve keeps on waiting… not giving up on Bucky… never. It’s worth it. The shy little flutter butts against Steve’s finger, causing his entire body to sag.

It’s there.

It’s really there.

He’s… tired. Confused. He can barely move his limbs and his back feels like he has been using it for sledge sliding down a slope of smoldering plank road for days. He still cannot decide if the surreal images of being enslaved by demons scattered all around his mind are just the remnants of some frighteningly vivid hallucinations, caused by the damage his body had to endure, or if he really died and went to hell for a while.  
It’s shock… Exhaustion? Steve doesn’t know and doesn’t care. They are alive, and he keeps repeating it in his head… making himself believe it’s not a dream… that it’s true,

That he is alive.

That _Bucky_ is alive.

It’s _not_ a dream.

Cannot be.

Steve’s fingers spasm and dig into Bucky’s cold skin before he can stop them, his nerves getting the best of him despite his efforts. His left hand curls around his right wrist almost instantly, pulling… nails coated in red. An unforgiving fist of iron sizes his heart and sends him tumbling into the wasteland of wide eyed terror.

He stares at the smears at his fingers dumbly before his head snaps up and there it is… the damage he caused Bucky. Swallowing back the burn in his throat at the sight of blossoming purple bruises, Steve disregards his protesting body’s pleas and forces himself to sit up. He has to grit his teeth and find purchase in the fresh, damp soil beneath him to be able to pull himself upwards. And then to stop himself from toppling all over Bucky’s still body.

Closing his eyes only seems to make things worse, yet when he reopens them he sees nothing but shadows and stars that remind him of calculating inhuman eyes. It’s maddening, the uncertainty over what is real and what is just the figment of his imagination. He glances down at the small gauges decorating his inner wrist. The splashes of red are stark against his sickly pale skin, but they are enough for him to pour the last traces of his conviction into the fading sting the cool breeze circling around him leaves behind.

He’s alive.

Bucky is alive.

They fell out of a train.

They survived the fall.

They survived.

This is all Steve knows and cares about at the moment. No, that isn’t right. Bucky is barely there… barely alive… his pulse is slow enough to be considered nonexistent. And even with Steve taking the brunt of the fall, he must be horribly injured under his uniform.

Steve doesn’t remember how he does it, but he somehow manages to move Bucky off his legs and onto his back in the grass, although even that much leaves him winded and shaking. Wrestling the still thawing fabric of Bucky’s pea coat open feels like an unconquerable challenge when his fingers cramp around the buttons and refuse to cooperate. By the time he pulls Bucky’s shirt apart, shredding the worn-thin material with the last dregs of his energy, Steve is ready to drop and never get up again. It’s only his need to know Bucky is safe and cared for that helps him through the blinding dizziness that settles over his eyes enough to notice the ugly lacerations over Bucky’s ribs. And it’s only his sheer stubbornness that prevents him from fainting at the sight.

Things become muddled as Steve tries to convince himself that if his broken ribs had pierced his lung, while cursing himself out for not learning more than the absolute basics of field medicine from Morita. He catches flashes of what is happening as his body works on autopilot. He can vaguely recall the sharp ripping sound of dark trousers, the deformity of a leg, a high pitched whine, and cold air touching his bare arms. But he has no recollection of how these memories are linked.  
He feels like a sightless ghost in his own body, useless and wrung out. He’s powerless against the supposedly non-existent limits of a body that was engineered to perfection, so when it stops working, Steve has a front row seat to welcome oblivion like an old friend.


	2. Wilderness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve does his best to nurse a barely alive Bucky back to health, while stranded in the Alpine woods with next to no supplies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is part of the newly broken up Chapter 1. Still once again I want to thank all the amazing people who have been supporting me through writing this story and my amazing beta jinlinli
> 
> Also feel free to join me on Tumblr: queenofthewips.tumblr.com
> 
> And reviews and kudos are always welcome.

**Chapter 2 - Wilderness**

Hunting for animals is not something Steve is used to. As a born and bred city boy, his biggest hunting achievement was stealing a bar of 3 Musketeers from Mr. Markovic’ corner shop while Bucky distracted the grouchy old man. And even that feat was laced with the bittersweet taste of childish fear of being caught red-handed. So crouching behind the trunk of a thick pine tree and watching a lone deer munch on a patch of luscious grass is certainly a novel experience even if crouching in the undergrowth in wait for the perfect moment to strike isn’t. For the fracture of a second Steve allows himself to think of Bucky, carefully hidden in the dense underbrush nearby, still unresponsive but alive. Bucky would down the deer in a heartbeat, executing the perfect kill shot from hundreds of yards and saving Steve from the trouble of catching the easily spooked animal with a knife.

But he is on his own.

‘O _nly temporarily’_ , he has to remind himself even as a soft whooshing noise catches the deer’s attention and Steve sees his opening. Learnt from his first attempt with the boar from hell –– a grave mistake that didn’t happen if anyone asks ––, he carefully aims the large rock in his hand and throws it, barely holding back. The dull thud the rock makes when it crashes into the animal’s head spurs Steve into motion. He readies the knife he found in Bucky’s boot before slipping out of his hiding spot. His body moves fluidly, strong if slightly stiff arms curling around the staggering deer’s neck from behind, and the blade is slicing through thick hide and into the soft tissue of the jugular the next moment. Lowering it to the ground, Steve brushes his fingers down the downy fur on its chest–– when he pulls his hand back, his skin is tainted warm red.

Blood is still rushing in his ears from the purely bestial thrill of the predator he has only ever seen rear its ugly head when they were raiding Hydra bases as he sinks onto his knees in front of the deer, waiting for it to bleed out. The wakening soil is drinking up the flowing gift, straws of grass gaining a ruby shine, and the world around Steve crumples into phantom sounds of cracking gunshots, splattered with the spectres of fallen allies and enemies. Steve is in the middle of the carnage, kneeling and staring down into the frozen roundness of Bucky’s eyes, stupefied.

He scrambles forward without thinking, hoping to close the gaping wound on Bucky’s neck with his bare hands, but the moment his palm closes over the illusion shatters and matted, thick fur is tickling his skin where smooth human flesh should be. Bucky’s blue-grey eyes morph into inhumanly large brown ones, and Steve can’t get away fast enough. He twists his body to the side, dry heaving until his vision is clouded with unshed tears.

His reaction blindsides Steve, not understanding what could have triggered it in the first place. It isn’t his first kill, far from it, yet the sight of the deer’s blind, innocent eyes managed to send him into a frenzy. Even now, looking back at the buck sends his stomach roiling, and he has to count his own breaths to settle it again.

It takes him far too long to finally feel up to hauling the deer onto his shoulders. Dressing it and processing the meat here would be simpler, probably, but the thought of being away from Bucky for longer than necessary makes Steve’s nerves fray. He has to see it with his own eyes and feel it with his own hands that Bucky is still where Steve left him… alive.

The weight of the deer nearly buckles his knees, an experience that’s truly humbling and a good reminder that the serum might have made him stronger, but even his new capabilities have their limits. He chooses not to think about the little detail where those limits mean surviving a several hundred feet fall and still being able to lift and carry the dead weight of a full-grown buck with fractured bones.

Glancing up at the sun when he reaches Bucky’s hideout, Steve absently notes that it took him the better part of three hours to catch the deer and bring it back. He doesn’t waste his time on useless minutes, his gaze and soul too hungry to catch Bucky’s still, pale features and make sure every detail matches the etched deeply in his memory. It does and it helps quiet the foul monster that still attempts to take over his mind with doubt and hopelessness time and again.

He deposits his burden at a safe distance away from Bucky and tries to remember anything about handling fresh kills. He forces himself to look down at the undamaged belly of the animal, and pulls out the knife from his boot. He vaguely remembers his mother telling him about her childhood in the Irish countryside when Steve was little, but she never went into details about how her parents slaughtered the animals they kept.

A memory of a jovial, heavyset man with a butcher’s knife the size of Steve’s head floats into his mind. Mr. Molnar, he was called, and his clipped, strange accent always made Bucky snicker when he tried to imitate it behind the man’s back. Steve really liked Mr. Molnar, who liked to tell them stories about his old home back in Europe while he was teaching Bucky how to process different kinds of meat.

 _“You need to skin… no vait a second. Dress. Yes, dress. You need to dress de animal first.”_ That was what he said, looking down at an already dressed cow, accent thick and coarse like his cutting board. _“You make cut heer,”_ he pointed his knife at where one of the cow’s hooves used to be, _“end heer,”_ he added, drawing the knife up to the cow’s lower belly where its privates used to be. _“But don’t cut too deep. Can ruin the meat.”_

Crouching down, Steve is careful with the knife as he makes the incisions slowly, not that it makes his moves any less clumsy. He has no idea how he’s supposed to proceed on from here, the butcher’s _“get in der end pull”_ advice provides a little help. It is a spur of a moment decision to make a long cut up the deer’s leg, then get his fingers into the wound and start pulling. A sharp, ripping sound fill the air around him, making Steve wince and unconsciously glance in Bucky’s direction. But Bucky doesn’t even twitch, his expression serene and undisturbed, and Steve has to grit his teeth to be able to continue his task.

Steve growls in frustration, vibrations resonating deep in his chest, as his arms start to burn with overexertion. Bile rises in his throat at the sight of newly revealed flesh gleaming wetly under the layer of each inch of revealed skin. By the time he has most of the skin off, leaving only the head intact because it looks too much work, he feels like his arms are going to fall off, and he has to sit down and fight off the dizziness that has come over him.

His hands look like they will be forever caked in blood, and it only gets worse as he remembers that he’s supposed to get the organs out. He shouldn’t feel so affected by something so mundane, not after all the men whose life fell at his hands. But it’s not the same. Far from it, actually. Those men, most of them faceless and catalogued as enemy never really had the chance to look him in the eye, or more like Steve never had the time to stop and really think about what he had done. Not when there were others who kept shooting at him and his men, fighting back. Unlike the deer under his hands.

The deer was just an innocent creature in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now it is lying, robbed of its life with Steve as the thief who now has to finish the job and face the consequences at the same time. And it’s hard, harder anyone would expect, and messed up because why would he feel sorry for an animal when he felt no real remorse for the men who fell by his hand?

The men who were just like him, believing in a cause and following orders to mould the world to their image. An image that was fundamentally wrong and oppressive, but one they saw or were forced to see as worth fighting for. They were soldiers yes, but they were human first, yet Steve and his comrades never hesitated to take the final step to stop to do what they believed to be right––to kill for an ideal.

He realizes now that his passionate declaration of not liking bullies isn’t as easily applicable in war as he wanted to believe when Dr. Erskine offered him a chance in the Army. He was proud to be finally seen worthy of something, and walked into the metal casket and laid down his life willingly, only to be turned inside out and never to see the real Steve Rogers ever again.

He looks down at his blood soaked hands full of cooling, soft intestines, and the hysteric laugh that bubbles up in his chest tastes like acid. Where is the perfect specimen scientists worked so hard to create, now? Where is the good man he pretended to be?

It was reduced to an instinct driven animal, scavenging on innocent lives.

Steve doesn’t remember how he manages to finish disemboweling the deer. Time slips away from him, rushing through his soiled fingers, and when he blinks his eyes open next he is staring down a pile of organs shining wetly in the early afternoon sun before him. The stench of blood and other body fluids make him gag, but Steve muscles through it and keeps on cutting away, slicing lean meat off sturdy bones that still snap in his hands like dry twigs.

Storing the meat is going to be a problem, he realizes as the knife snips away more and more chunks. The nights might be still cold enough to need a fire built, but the days are warm and unless he does something, it will go bad in no time. But there is no cold room or even a box to keep the meat in.

He has half the mind to throw the knife away and just leave everything behind, but he cannot do that to Bucky. Bucky doesn’t deserve to be abandoned, and Steve promised to be always there for him. However, he never felt more useless and helpless, not even when he was standing in the middle of that dingy little examination room and had people argue over what they should do with him as if he was just another furniture they wanted to find a place for.

He buries his face in his hands and lets his forehead fall onto his folded knees as he tries to breath through the wretched scream clawing against his rib cage. It’s no surprise no one really found him of use even after he was magically turned strong and healthy. He really had nothing to offer but big words and an act of bravery that only fooled innocents seeking a reprieve from the wreckage war brought to their lives. His real worth can be plainly seen in his hunched shoulders and the half massacred carcass lying in front of him.

Standing up on shaky legs, Steve stumbles away from the butched up work he has done. Suddenly, the need to be away from everything is unbearable, and he wobbles his way through dense trees until he can fall face first in a small creek dashing merrily not far from their little camp.

~ ~ ~

It’s nearly dark, when Steve finds his way back to Bucky and the deer, inwardly kicking himself for succumbing to the frayed nerves of his mind. He’s aware that it’s only by pure luck that some animal didn’t come across the deer or Bucky. Who is still lying under the copse of bushes, dead to the world as if Steve didn’t just have a mental breakdown over killing a deer.

Crouching down beside his best friend, Steve checks Bucky pulse and pushes down the dregs of shame still clinging to the back of his throat. He closes his eyes to count along the seconds until he can feel the sweet butterfly wings of life under his fingers. His lips tilt upwards when it makes its appearance at one hundred seventy-three seconds, over half the time it needed two days ago. Counting the seconds for a second then third time around is becoming a habit he cannot and doesn’t want to shake, not when it’s the only thing saving him from giving up. He pulls the tattered blue coat off Bucky’s torso, checking on the purple and black bruises littering the usually pale skin, his fingers hovering over them a hair breadth away from touching.

It should be impossible, the rate Bucky is healing, Steve knows this, but he doesn’t want to question the miracle he was given lest it turns out to be just a figment of his imagination. The image of Bucky disappearing before his eyes has Steve reach up and sink his hand into the dewy locks on Bucky’s head, tethering himself to the new-found familiarity of the gesture. His eyes are glued to the discolored chest that isn’t moving to the untrained eyes, but Steve’s keen vision picks up the almost imperceptible rise and fall of Bucky’s lungs, and stays glued to it, unblinking. He tucks the coat back around Bucky’s upper body, to keep him warm, and reaches for the flask of river water he put next to Bucky’s head. He has to wonder if Bucky felt this helpless whenever Steve was delirious with fever, while he dabs a dampened piece of cloth over Bucky’s lips, careful not to get any water into his mouth.

The wait for things to turn better seems useless at times, and Steve hates himself more than ever whenever the thought of just ending both of their suffering crosses his mind. And still, a part of him cannot help but wonder if it wouldn’t be more humane and respectful to Bucky instead of letting him drift between worlds, not really crossing the threshold of either.

But Steve is selfish.

So he holds onto the sliver of hope that keeps on glimmering with each imperceptible breath Bucky takes, and does his best to keep him warm and content. And prays for a miracle every night.  

 

 


	3. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky regains his consciousness but the road to recovery is never a smooth one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last part of the original chapter one. I hope you guys will like it, and please thank [jinlinli](archiveofourown.org/users/jinlinli/) for the cleanness of this chapter by checking her work out if you have the time. She's the best.
> 
> Also kudos and reviews give me life.

**Chapter 3 - Awakening**

Rain is pelting pinpricks of ice-shards over Steve’s bare shoulders, and plastering his hair to his forehead as he hurries back to the little cave he found on his last hunt by sheer dumb luck. His boots and pants are caked in a thick layer of mud even though he took them down to the small creek not far from their new shelter for a thorough cleaning only the day before. The pants would have stayed mostly clean if he didn’t decide that wrestling down the skittish goat thrown over his shoulders would help him blow off some steam after being cooped up, taking care of Bucky, who still hasn’t regained his consciousness.

The cold doesn’t bother him, and the slight strain the weight of the animal puts on his mostly healed shoulder is only noticeable because he fell on a large rock when he jumped the goat that somehow managed to slip through his grasp at first. It was an unexpected challenge, but one that allowed him to release some of the tension he has been bottling up since he came back from the desolate abyss his mind sent him after the fall. The thumble left him pleasantly numb, the crash of adrenaline clearing away the cobwebs gathered around his thoughts.

The cave, while too small to comfortably house a large animal, is big enough to provide shelter for them, even if Steve has to crouch down to avoid colliding with the hard rock ceiling. He bites back a groan as he lowers himself onto his knees to safely deposit the goat in the far corner of the cave. Bucky is lying on the soft pelt of the first and only deer Steve has managed to catch in the past week, so close yet still galaxies away from Steve.

He would be outraged if he knew that Steve had to carry him to their shelter like a damsel in distress. The mental image brings a wan smile to Steve’s lips, wishing he could hear Bucky’s furious muttering about turning to Steve in the worst ways possible, before he would clap him on the shoulder to ease the sting of the comment like he always did. And Steve would laugh, not offended in the least, and punch Bucky in the arm, having to mind his own strength, for a change.

He checks on Bucky’s rapidly healing ribs and the makeshift splint on his right leg, reassured, but deep down also somewhat frightened, that the discoloration is only minimal by now. Bucky’s leg also looks almost fully healed despite the poor substitute Steve had to use to set the bone straight. His face has regained some color in the last few days, and he looks closer to being alive than dead. The fact that Steve has been carefully making him drink some water and even broth cooked from goat bones and liver ever since his breathing regularized may have something to do with it, too.

Despite his own super healing, Steve can feel the way his joints protest against him moving from his sitting position again. He wants nothing more than to lie down and curl around Bucky, and allow himself the luxury of just closing his eyes and forget everything. However, the goat has to be dressed and processed, an act that still leaves him lightheaded despite his best efforts. Not to mention, he has to feed Bucky some of the broth they have left over from the day before, which is harder than one would think.

Steve promises himself he will get up in a minute, but the next thing he knows is his body jolting awake and his hand is reaching for the shield that’s not with him anymore. Inhumanly strong fingers claw into his neck as if they wanted to tear his throat out, but Steve’s reflexes are an easy match, and he manages to grab the struggling wrists before overgrown nails can do too much damage.

He stares up at the figure crouching and shaking over him, his sluggish brain needing far too long to process what he is seeing. His eyes immediately widen when he sees fogged, but furious grey eyes glaring back at him.

“Bucky!” Steve gasps, hoping that hearing his name would bring Bucky back from wherever his mind has taken him. But Bucky just lets out this gnarled, broken sound and struggles even harder against Steve’s hold. “It’s me, Steve, pal. You’re safe. We survived. No one can hurt you. You’re safe.” He repeats the words again and again, thankful that his long arms can wrap around Bucky’s trashing body.

Harsh tremors wrack Bucky’s body long after he stops fighting Steve’s hold on him. A litany of choking little ‘nos’ crashes against Steve’s chest, blurred with Bucky’s serial number, and it cracks Steve’s barely healed heart open wide once again. He buries his face in Bucky’s lank hair, whispering nonsensical words, and hopes that his best friend will come back to him when he’s ready.

The fire is long dead and they are ensconced in the chilly darkness of late night, when Bucky takes a shuddering breath, his body tensing all over again. Steve is instantly alert and ready to hold off another attack, but Bucky doesn’t move. He stays still, air rasping in his chest and Steve’s ears, as if it could hide him from whatever monsters have been tormenting him. This skittishness makes Steve careful to relax his own muscles and ignore the growing numbness in his legs.

“Bucky?” Keeping his voice quiet and calm doesn’t make a difference, because Bucky still flinches back. “It’s okay,” he adds even though it couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Steve?” Bucky chokes out, managing to lift his head for a second before it falls back down onto Steve’s chest.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Steve replies, stroking a relief weakened hand down Bucky’s back. “I’m here.”

“Are we... dead?” Steve can feel the sudden upheaval in Bucky’s heartbeat, and he has to fight his the constant doubt scraping against his subconscious to keep his own pulse steady.

He still has to swallow back a fresh wave of terror before he can say, “No, Buck, we’re alive. We survived.”

“‘M think you lyin’,” Bucky slurs, burying his fingers in Steve’s biceps. “‘S fine tho… Dead’s fine with you.” His words tear into Steve like a double edged spear of sorrow and consolation, making his eyes bleed a hot river of tears.

“Could never lie to you, Buck,” he manages to say after stifling the silent sobs wanting to wreck him, but Bucky has already slipped back into unconsciousness.

~ ~ ~

“The world needs us, Buck,” Steve says quietly, his gaze not straying from the dancing flames. It’s obvious he doesn’t believe his own words. “Who is going to take on Schmidt and his army?”

“The Howlies are still there––”

“How can you be so sure?” Bucky grits his teeth when Steve cuts him off, glaring at the self-sacrificing idiot and willing him to finally look up. But Steve just keeps on fighting fire with the blaze of his own eyes. “At least months if not years have passed––”

“And the world didn’t end.” Bucky shoots a cheeky smirk at Steve’s sour face and pushes on, “Or if it did, we missed it.”

“Isn’t that just one more reason to go back?”

“Steve––”

“You know I’m right. We’re soldiers who laid their lives down to protect their country and the lives of innocents from the tyrants...” Steve trails off, shadowed lines of conflict flickering over his face and turning his eyes into bottomless dark pits of misery. They whisper of the truth behind the perfect little soldier’s propaganda they try to embed in every weak-kneed rookie to make them scramble feel like they are going to be heroes even as they are sent off to be slaughtered. Only, it’s something Steve actually used to believe. And part of Bucky couldn’t help but always loathe this disgustingly noble yet selfish side of Steve, and the way he could make everyone feel horrible about themselves for never measuring up to the inherent goodness he was radiating like the tiny, ever blazing sun he was even before he was pumped full of that serum.

“Tyrants,” Bucky spits in disgust. “And who are those tyrants, Steve? Hydra? The Nazis? Or maybe Us? Because let’s face it, reality is nothing like those cheesy film and the glossy comics that have your ugly mug plastered all over them.”

“No, it’s not. But we’re fighting the good fight. For freedom––”

“For equality?” The laugh that bubbles up in Bucky’s still slightly raw chest is ugly and bitter. “Have you already forgotten that you had to fight tooth and nail to keep Gabe and Jim on the team? Or the way all the brass and even some of the dogfaces treated your girl, Agent Carter? Is having a shithead you’re rescuing from a Hydra camp spit at your feet is equality to you?”

“I––” Steve starts, then cuts himself off with a deep breath. “It just feels like I’m letting everyone down.”

“Then why did you jump after me?” And it’s cruel, Bucky knows this even before the words leave his mouth, but he can’t help wonder if Steve is regretting his decision of saving his life. If his the glorified image of the All American Hero washed away the fearless, extraordinary man Bucky swore to follow to the end of the line and beyond.

“You can’t be serious.” Steve’s voice raw is with hurt that matches the streaks of agony etched into the expression on his face, breaking the heavy, oppressive silence that has fallen between them. “You can’t be fucking serious, Bucky!”

“Oh really? And why not?” Bucky’s temper is flaring, too. “You’ve been jawing at me about being a bad soldier, a coward, a damned corner turner because you’re not running back to the heels of your masters the moment you can take more than two straight steps. What should I think, huh?”

“It’s not about running back,” Steve argues, and he’s never been more familiar than at this moment with his stubborn chin jutted out, lips set in an angry scowl and his eyes blazing, ready for a fight. For a second, they’re back in one of the many dirty alleys of Brooklyn, righteous fury a shimmering halo around Steve, facing off some dumb asshole. Except this time, the asshole was Bucky and that mutinous glare was aimed at him.

“Let me guess. It’s about being of use,” Bucky shoots back, hating that his muscles are still too stiff to be able to fold his arms over his chest. “Being _made_ for more.”

“If it wasn’t for this body––” Steve stops himself abruptly, but it’s too late. Even without finishing the sentence, Bucky knows what he was about to say. _You’d be long dead on that fucking table._

Bucky turns onto his side, away from the hateful look of regret and devastation taking over Steve’s face. He’s so fucking tired. Tired of fighting, of hiding the way every killshot he makes chip away at his heart, leaving behind nothing but all-consuming desolation. Of pretending that everything is fine when all he wants to do is scream until his vocal cords shred beyond repair.

Steve’s body heat is a line of bitter comfort against his back, but Bucky doesn’t pull away when he feels a strong arm curl around his stomach. Steve’s breathing is almost back to the rattling whistles of their past life, reminding Bucky that no matter how fit Steve has been acting, he is still recovering from his injuries, his much more serious injuries probably, just like him. The thought makes him kick himself mentally, blaming that invincible looking body for forgetting that neither of them came out unscathed from the fall.

“Are you okay?” he asks, quietly, earning a raspy, resonating chuckle from Steve.

“Just fine,” he replies into the back of Bucky’s neck, his hot, moist breath fanning over the feather-soft hairs, causing small tremors to run down Bucky’s spine. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” Steve adds, voice little more than a wisp of air as he presses his forehead against Bucky’s nape. “But I don’t want to go back.”

“And you think that makes you a coward,” Bucky finished the thought for him, knowing he was right even without Steve going all rigid behind him. “Which is just stupid. Like you.”

“But what if they need us?”

“Steve, I don’t think they looked for us.” There, he said it out loud. He knows that under all that heroic shit, Steve is thinking about the way no one has looked for them for months, maybe years. “Can you call not going back desertion when we were abandoned first?”

“That’s not how it works and you know it.” Steve just can’t let it go for some reason. “But you’re right,” he continues after a heartbeat of silence.

“What? Can you repeat that?” Bucky asks, the right corner of his mouth curling up in a ghost of his old, ever present smirk. Steve, huffs indignantly and Bucky knows if things were different, his arm would be already stinging from Steve’s punch.

“You’re a jerk.”

“And you’re a punk. Nothing new there.”

“Yeah, well, you’re stuck with this punk. What does that say about you?”

“That I fell on my head?” The joke falls flat and they once again descend into a strained silence.

Bucky stares into the merrily dancing flames, listening to Steve’s heavy breathing and wondering if they will ever find a way to overcome all the horrors the war dealt them. Probably not. Being a survivor doesn’t mean being the lucky one sometimes. The stench of blood and death just embeds into your pores too deep to wash away. The sound of your comrades’ dying screams continues to ring in your ears long after they are nothing more than red a pair of stained dog tags and carefully etched names on a slab of marble. The feeling of not doing enough, of failing all those civilians and soldiers alike is just a crippling weight on your heart.

Bucky’s father couldn’t take it in the end. Steve’s didn’t last half as long before he chose the cold lullaby of lead instead of the monsters of freedom and victory. And now Steve and he were huddled in a cave, hiding from the world and arguing about the merits of submitting themselves even more of the same terrors that sent their fathers into their early graves. What a bunch of idiots they are.

“I’m not going back,” he says in the end, unable to take the silence anymore.

“Bucky?” Steve sounds unsure, but there is a lilt of hope hidden deep in his tone Bucky decides to take as a good sign.

“I’m not going back on that table, Stevie,” he repeats with more conviction. “Ever.”

“The Army isn’t that bad,” Steve tries, but it’s a lie and they both know it.

Steve didn’t tell him much about what happened to him after he got his new body, but there were dropped hints about days and days of nothing but blood tests, of being prodded and poked by doctors, of being made run on and on. Everyone ribbed him for being a chorus girl, and Steve always took it in his stride with a rueful smile and an awkward, bitter tinted laugh, but the moment anyone asked how he got so big, he’d clam up and divert the conversation.

The Army preyed on Steve’s idiotic need to prove himself and used his glamorous morals to trap him in its inescapable spiderweb. In a way, Bucky wasn’t any better for using twenty years of friendship to get his way, aiming verbal precision shots where he knows it will hit the hardest. But Bucky has had time to come to terms with his own failure as a decent human being. If, instead of getting people killed, it would help his best friend make a decision for himself for a change, then it was worth it.

He allows Steve another couple of moments to ponder over what he just said, before he launches his next attack, self-hatred and selfishness churning in his gut. “You can leave me here if you want to go back so bad,” he says.

Steve’s arm tightens around him impossibly for a second, and suddenly it’s hard to breathe through the thunderous panic clouding up his mind. The arm around his middle morphs into unforgiving leather straps treated with the blood of misery and there is nothing left but a line of ingrained numbers and hoarse shrieks flooding his head.

He tries to jerk away and fight off the toad faced little man’s cold fingers cutting into his arms. Lashing out is impossible against the vices holding him in place, which leaves him with nothing but to spit into the bastard’s face, expecting to be backhanded like so many times before. However, instead of the flash fire throb igniting his face, he is almost sure someone is stroking his hair and a deep, well-known voice that has no place in the torture chamber with Bucky is calling his name.   

He tries to call out, to curse the little toad for using his most precious memories against him but the howling wind is too loud in his ears, and he has no hold over his own body anymore. The world is shaking under the explosions coming from hell, and the toad is replaced by a monster whose face melts off its head leaving behind nothing but red and crippling fear.

Then that red skull is changing, morphing into a new horror––into his own face with skin fading into the same red that has been consuming his vision only a moment ago. And Bucky chokes, thrashing against his restraints, and begging for death to take him and release him from the torments of life.

His entire body goes rigid when he comes to, expecting the sharp bite of leather and the metallic tang of blood. Instead, he feels the feather light touch of fingers in his hair, loving and serene like his mother’s touch used to be, disorienting him for what feels like seconds but could be hours. It takes him too long to remember what happened, and then manage to blink away the last specks of the ugly hallucinations clinging to his heavy lids. He opens his mouth, lips tearing where they’ve been stuck together, and he tries to be nonchalant without having to face Steve whose warmth behind him is like a personal furnace.

“How long I’ve been out?” Bucky rasps, wincing at the sandpapery feel of his throat.

The fingers still momentarily before resuming their ministrations, and Steve takes a breath as if preparing himself for something bad. “Not that long. A couple of hours at most. It’s still dark outside,” he says, calm. Too calm.

“Did I do something?” Steve doesn’t reply. “Did I hurt you?” Bucky presses on, feeling his heartbeat pick up along with his breathing.

“No. I––” Steve stumbles over his words, and Bucky is already expecting the worst. “I had to put you into sleeperhold.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t need to, really. If he lashed out just half as bad as he felt, it’s not a surprise Steve had to choke him into unconsciousness to stop him from hurting either of them.

“I’m sorry.” Bucky wants to roll his eyes at the guilt that’s practically rolling off Steve in immense waves. It’s him who should be saying sorry, but the words clog in his chest, forcing him to take in deep breaths. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It’s okay, Steve.” It’s not okay, but it’s not Steve’s fault that Bucky is little more than damaged goods now. Steve really should have let him fall alone, and save both of them the humiliation of watching him descend into the madness of mental decay.

“We don’t have to go back,” Steve says, stilted. “Not if you don’t want to.”

And isn’t it a kick in the chest to hear his always incensed best friend sound so subdued, almost afraid? Bucky wants to be angry at Steve for treating him with kid gloves, like he could break in any moment, but he can’t find it in himself. War changes people, Bucky’s ma always remembered fondly of George Barnes, telling Bucky and his sisters stories about a charming young man who fell victim of the woes of war.

Maybe his father would be proud that Bucky is as much of a coward as he was, running away from his responsibilities out of weakness.

 

 


	4. Raging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The road to recovery is never an easy one. This time it's filled with nightmares, explosive tempers and self-hatred. And maybe a little bit of hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the amazing response to this fic! I hope you guys will like the new chapter, too! Once again thanks [jinlinli](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jinlinli) for betaing for me and please check out the wonderful [ART](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7767910) by the wonderful [Dicky](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDrunkSoldier/pseuds/TheDrunkSoldier) made for this chapter.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome of course. ^_^
> 
> Update 08/21/16: I decided to end the first part of the series here for two reasons:  
> 1) The plot will have a change of scenery in the next scene which will stay the same for over a decade in the plot, so I thought leaving the remaining scenes from the original chapter two to be published in Part 2.  
> 2) At the moment, I don't have time to complete the remaining scenes before the deadline and it would be unfair to my artists to miss the BB because of this. 
> 
> I hope you guys understand and I'll try to post Part 2 as soon as possible, because Steve and Bucky's adventures are only just starting.

**Chapter 4 - Raging**

 

_“Your work is going to shape the world, Sergeant,” the toad man says, leaning over him with a self-satisfied smile. “You are the first specimen who survived the change. You will make Hydra stronger. Better. Unstoppable.”_

_Bucky stares at the glinting metal rims of the man’s moon-like glasses, clenching his teeth to stop himself from saying anything. Let the crazed toad have his evil villain monologue all he wants. It’s not going to break Bucky. He’s never going to compromise Steve’s safety in any way._

_The toad keeps on rambling, and the manic gleam in his beady eyes would scare Bucky if he hadn’t been subjected to it for what feels like years. Then the heavy set of doors are pushed open and the room fills with the panicked curses of someone vaguely familiar. Bucky doesn’t fall for the bait, it’s not the first time they dragged one of his comrades in for a demonstration._

_But something is different this time. He can see it in the stretch of the toad’s pale mouth that they have planned something new for him. A man in sterile clothes and a mask with lifeless dark eyes steps up to the toad with a metallic tray in his hands, and instinct kicks in immediately at the sight of the over-sized syringe with the thick needle. Bucky tries to throw his body off the table, but his body is pinned down with heavy duty chains, a detail he hasn’t noticed until this moment._

_He feels his head snap up as he snarls at the toad man, parched lips cracking around slimy teeth, but the toad simply hums and hurns his smile at the masked man._

_“See, Hermann?” The masked man’s gaze doesn’t stray from the far, blood stained wall. “Is not Sergeant Barnes our finest specimen yet?”_

_“Ja, Herr Doctor,” Hermann replies, well-practiced and monotone._

_“He is ready for Phase Two, is he not?” Hermann doesn’t say anything, just offers the tray and keeps on watching the wall as the toad doctor picks up the syringe. “Bring Test Subject Number 230.”_

_Black clad soldiers drag forward a small, trashing body with a head full of limp, blond hair that triggers something in the back of Bucky’s mind. However, before he can figure out why those strawy locks seem so familiar, the toad man stabs the syringe right into his neck, and it takes Bucky shredding his own lips bloody to stop himself from screaming._

_It takes only a fraction of a second for his blood to catch fire like gasoline on grass after weeks of drought. In his last moment of clarity, Bucky tries to bite his tongue, but vice-like fingers clamp around his faw and force his mouth open, and then he knows nothing than utter agony for ages._

_He screams._

_He feels like he’s being consumed by fiery acid, flesh falling off liquid bones and blood boiling to poisonous vapor. He wants to beg and promise anything just to be rid of the unbearable pain. He wants to remember a face that used to be so important he was ready to die a million times over just to ensure the person behind the face was safe. He wants to remember being a person, but the all encompassing heat turns his mind into a suddenly enraged mush that propels his body forward with one goal: destroy._

_Someone tears away his chains and he finds himself on his legs, knees buckling yet somehow keeping him up. His red fingers bite into the fragile bone bands clamped onto his elbows, only for the glint of something gold to catch his attention and he finds himself lurching forward, chased by the hoarse wails ringing in his ears. His fingers are poised, ready to strike._

_Then a word he didn’t remember ever hearing penetrates the crimson fog, and he staggers before he can reach that light._

_“Gütig.” The same word again, and this time his legs fold under him. “Gut.” The grating voice scrapes its claws down his shattered mind, but he is helpless against it. He cannot move, cannot scream, cannot fight._

_He is imprisoned in the cage of his own body and left alone with the wrathful storm turning against him for his only companion. He can vaguely sense someone moving closer to him, a dull thud against his ribs magnified into the stab wound of a thousand knives, yet he continues to lie there, paralyzed and drowning in his own mind._

_“Heimkehr.”_

_ _

_The word comes from far away, but its effect is instantaneous. His body folds in on itself then springs up, ignoring the long lashes of pain streaking cruelly against his skin and bones and joints. Finding his target is easy, the tiny body is quivering in a corner like a terrified mouse before the cat strikes. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t consider the cruelty of attacking a defenseless man, especially one that looks so frail._

_The target’s neck nearly disappears in his hand when he starts squeezing. Thin fingers grapple against his arm, only to drop away a second later with a choked off scream from the target. A pathetic kick hits his abdomen, then falls away with a crunch and another scream. The target is still shrieking through his desperate gasps that seem to form words._

_“...ky. B...cky…” He punches the target hard, unthinking, then again and again, until the nerve-wrecking sounds cut off and flickering blue, blue, blue eyes swell shut._

_The world is shaking around him, and the walls of the lab begin to crumble. He still looks down at the broken body, frozen on the spot despite the way his shoulders are shaking. The body looks familiar._

_Small._

_No._

_Bird-boned._

_No._

_Twisted._

_No._

_Wisps of blond speckled with red._

_No._

_Artist hands mangled beyond repair._

_No._

_A stilled hollow chest._

_NO!_

Bucky’s eyes snap open, and he has the feeling that he would have jackknifed up if strong hands weren’t holding his shoulders down. Blue eyes he knows better than anything stare down at him, wide with worry, and Bucky needs a long moment to understand that he was having a nightmare.

Except it happened.

“Steve,” he gets out just as the pad of his index finger brushes over the tight skin in the corner of Steve’s left eye. “Fuck.”

He continues to look up at the face that looks so similar yet different from the one he just destroyed seconds ago, reaching his trembling hands to touch intact cheekbones and follow the soft, fragile lines of eyelids. He still half-expects those sculpted new/old features to morph into the toad’s round head, and hear the annoying German accent when chapped lips open.

“Bucky?”

The deep, concerned voice causes him to grit his teeth against the rush of relief, and after a deep breath filled with the now familiar smell of goat bone soup and a side of goat roast, he manages to buff his knuckles against Steve’s chin lightly.

“Just a nightmare, punk.” His flash of teeth make Steve scrunch his eyebrows, so Bucky rolls his eyes for good measure. “Really. Just my head playing tricks.”

He pushes against Steve’s chest, ignoring the crawling need in the back of his mind that wants to both rein Steve in and never let go, and shy away from the strong, healthy body that hides his best friend. Steve lets him, pulling back immediately but with obvious reluctance, and watches Bucky with a focus he, himself has only ever felt when he was listening to the raspy breaths rattling his best friend’s thin chest during long winter nights. Or when he was lying on his stomach in his perch, waiting for the perfect shot. Bucky can almost hear the annoying _“Are you sure, Buck?”_ Steve has perfected to an artform in the last couple? of years since he rescued Bucky and the others from that Hydra compound.

But Steve is all quiet respect as he goes back to the bowl stone simmering over the little fire pit Steve put together while Bucky’s body was doing its best to prove the laws of nature and physics wrong and heal from a deadly fall without any medical help or sustenance.

_You are our finest specimen._

Bucky bites back a growl that stems so deep it seems to resonate in his bones, and chooses to concentrate on sitting up. He got away from that toad faced bastard and his perverted taste for oversized needles. It doesn’t matter what has become of him in the process.

Dinner is a quiet affair. They sit with their shoulders pressed together as they do their best to savor the juicy goat Steve caught just that morning. Bucky glances at the wall across from him that serves their calendar, counting the little etches twice just to be sure his mind is not playing tricks with. The little scriggles on the left side count six, showing the days Steve spent in the cave with Bucky as a useless burden. The neat lines on the right count twenty-six.

Nearly a month has passed since he woke up. It’s hard to believe, but the numbers don’t lie. They have been living in their perfect little bubble of solitude without seeing another human being for nearly a month. And still no one has found them. Or looked for them for all they know, just like Bucky threw it in Steve’s face to shut him up eight days ago.

Bucky looks at Steve from the corner of his eye, noting the loosened line of muscles in his shoulders with a sense of relief. Which only lasts until he realizes it’s a decoy when he catches the way Steve is rubbing his fingers together every now and then. And once he starts looking for them, it’s impossible to miss all the little signs––like the soft tapping of feet and the way Steve’s worries his lower lip between his teeth––that tell him his best friend is gearing up for something stupid.

Looking down at his greasy hands that shine golden red in the firelight, Bucky admits to himself that he expected this moment to come much sooner. Maybe even the morning after that disastrous argument.

Anger flares in his chest at the thought of Steve waiting so long to launch his second half-assed, pathetically transparent attack because he has been treating him like Bucky is made of glass. And he is still doing it. Bucky doesn’t even have to look at him to know that Steve is desperately trying to hide his restlessness, as if they haven’t known each other their entire lives.

The desire to punch the asshole in his wrongly perfect face surges to the surface, uncontrollable. He reins it in with a great effort, but something must show on his face, because Steve freezes in his attempt to steal yet another glance at Bucky. The tilt of his lips is only a shadow of his old reassuring smiles, and in that moment, Bucky hates all the ill-fitting, perverted details that shouldn’t be there yet just won’t go away no matter how many times Bucky closes his eyes.

“Buck?” Steve sounds tentative, instinctively leaning closer to provide support he shouldn’t have to.

“Just spit it out.”

“What––”

“Cut the crap, Rogers!” Bucky doesn’t want to snap, doesn’t want to put that wounded shock on Steve’s face, but he can’t take the pussyfooting anymore. “We both know you’re itching to go another round at being the perfect martyr, so why don’t you just get to it already?”

Steve swallows heavily even as he holds Bucky’s glare with a his own steady gaze. He looks so earnest yet lost, and Bucky expects him to fold like a house of cards any moment now. He is waiting for the words to come and call him back in arms.

“What are you talking about?” And it sounds so honestly confused that Bucky almost believes that he was just imagining things because of his dream. But the signs are still there in Steve’s straightened shoulders and in the stubborn way he juts his chin out, ready to take on the world and Bucky in it.

“I’m not one of the blindly adoring women and reporters who flock to you whenever we’re back in civilization, Steve. I’ve known you forever and I know your tells. You’re planning something, and I know what.” Bucky folds his arms in front of his chest, aiming for defiant but feeling disgustingly weak and defensive.

It takes a few endlessly long seconds before Steve reacts, but when he does his whole face morphs into granite and his eyes become ice chips. It’s a face he only ever showed to the brass and wrecked villages with no survivors. It’s the face of a supersoldier who has no right to feel.

“Funny, because looking at you, I’d swear you don’t know me at all.” He sounds cool and collected like the perfect soldier he is, a finely calibrated machine created to take on the world. His movements are smooth and all control, even with his back hunched, as he stands up and leaves without looking back to see the damage his words are leaving behind.

Bucky watches him go. Words, both angry and desperate, are lead weights sitting in his stomach. He doesn’t call Steve back no matter how much he wants to, fear and his ever damned pride clamping his mouth shut, neither of them caring that his his legs crave to spring up and catch up with his best friend before he disappears from Bucky’s sight.

From his life.  

~ ~ ~

The decision that maybe it’s time to go back to civilization even if not home takes Steve five days to make, but he doesn’t bring it up for another two weeks after that. Mainly because after their failed conversation by the firelight, he only cares about concentrating on Bucky’s health and getting him back on his feet for a while. And also because he isn’t ready for another fight, not if they will keep saying on things they regret a second later.

The thought is still there though, itching in the back of his mind, and it makes him restless. He should expect Bucky to notice, and in a way he does, but the outraged accusation and the thinly veiled terror clouding Bucky’s eyes when he explodes still feel like a poison laced dagger tearing into Steve’s heart. And Steve can do nothing, but lock his jaw and leave with all the poise he learned during his USO days.

He doesn’t get far, maybe a few rigid steps away from the mouth of the cave, because the need to be close to his best friend, to be at hearing distance if anything happens, is was conditioned into him too hard to break. Instead, he sinks into the dewy grass and leans the back of his head against a tree, staring into the near suffocating night.

Deep down, he knows that Bucky doesn’t think a selfish, heartless bastard who only cares about the image he presents to the world despite how his words sounded. But his words still cut deep and dug right into Steve’s fears, feeding the dissonance between them has been eating away at their friendship since Bucky’s rescue. It has been maddening, watching Bucky slip further and further away from him with each lie Steve allowed him to get away with. Because Bucky wasn’t fine no matter how many times he said otherwise or how many times Steve made the effort to ignore the way his friend flinched away from his touch before he could catch himself or looked at Steve without recognizing him for too long seconds before he plastered a painfully fake rakish smile on his face and made himself clap Steve on the shoulder.

They have been forcing themselves to live a lie for the last two years before the fall. And look where those lies left them. Snapping at each other like wounded dogs, not knowing what counted as too far where there were never limits to their bond before. And it seemed Bucky finally decided he had enough, goading Steve into fighting back.

Into feeling helpless.

Lost.

He scoffs at his own thoughts, the word ‘martyr’ echoing in his head like the forlorn slurs of a broken record. Maybe Bucky is right, and he desperately needs to play the hero who lives to offer himself as a noble sacrifice on the altar of freedom. Maybe Bucky’s right, and the chip on his shoulder is too goddamn big for him. Or maybe, maybe he needs to stop lying through his teeth and accept he is nothing like the grand, fearless man with a plan.

Darkness coils around Steve’s neck like the ravenous tentacles of HYDRA smother the world. However, instead of fighting the invisible folds, he sinks into the deathly embrace, and turns his face toward the sea of stars judging the soul that belongs to a little guy in Brooklyn and not the magnificent visionary of patriotism spangled in stars and stripes.

The tragedy of Captain America must have broken a nation’s heart months or perhaps decades ago, then fueled the despondent rage simmering under the glossy surface of noble sacrifices and glamorous depictions of war. But who knows? They could have picked another fool to parade around on a leash, of course. It would have kept up the charade and their image shiny and alluring enough to draw funds and sheer power from the mass. And all the while, Steve Rogers was lying frozen in time, waiting for a miracle like Snow White awaited her magical kiss of life.

The smile that pulls at the corner of his lips tastes bitter as he dampens the chapped skin with his tongue. His magical kiss of life came from a bottle, but Steve isn’t sure the conditions attached were really worth the miracle. He looks down at his thick thighs, half-covered in badly sewn goat hide and held on by this belt. These strong legs allowed him to close impossible distances and heights as if they were nothing. They propelled him forward and through numbing dread when he was half-believing that Bucky was dead, yet still refused to give up on him. Twice. They allowed him to run faster than cars and to save lives. They were the legs of a someone with a bright future and unachievable expectations waiting for them, yet the weakling hiding inside the bones has willingly given up everything for one last jump into damnation.

And Steve cannot find it in himself to regret it. And doesn’t really want to either. Now he only has to tell Bucky somehow. Which is easier said than done, because by the time he finally gathers his courage to go back, Bucky is curled up on his side, eyes closed and breathing even. Maybe too even.

It’s another stab to Steve’s already bleeding heart, but there is nothing to do but take it like a man and lie down on his own bedding. He watches the smooth lines of ember lit features mold into thickening dark bristles, and the way fan-like lashes sweep gently against shadowed skin. The pain in his chest only worsens at the unattainable beauty laid out before him, so Steve wills his own eyes shut and hopes his dreams will be merciful.

They aren’t.

He shoots up disoriented with a sob, wedged in his lungs, his hand reaching for his best friend but never reaching him in a parallel world, where Captain America managed to consume Steve Rogers to the point where only lost tears follow after James Buchanan Barnes freefalling form. Steve is gasping and frantic to seek out the still slightly battered body of Bucky, but the bedding across from him is empty, and only matting fur and cooling ashes remind Steve that they are both alive.

Still, he almost falls on his face in his haste to get out of the boar hide tangled around his legs, frantic to lay his eyes on the familiar figure with a face exactly the same and all at once too different to belong to the person who grew up in Steve’s failing, stubborn heart. He stumbles outside, looking around for nothing because Bucky is almost exactly at the place where Steve was sitting the night before, sharpening the end of a long piece of wood with his knife.

Bucky doesn’t look up when Steve walks over to him or react, really, besides the minute tension flicking over the muscles in his neck. The desperate need to breach the silence gnaws at Steve’s stomach, but the opening words just wouldn’t come, and Bucky remains silent and distant, refusing to offer the slightest morsel of help.

Steve’s mouth drops open, only to close without saying anything, and the moment stretches with cutting pressure Steve doesn’t want to bear. He opens his mouth again, his hands clenched into fists, and after a deep breath that sounds more like a resigned sigh he says,

“Morning, Buck.” He doesn’t get further, because Bucky’s eyes shoot up, their focus is like one of the surgically precise wounds of Bucky’s headshots and just as cold. It’s cruel and should be alien on the face of Steve’s best friend, yet it has become an achingly familiar look in the past two years. It dares him to go on, to make the situation even worse. And Steve, never one to back off from a challenge, squares his shoulders and stares back at the almost stranger in front of him. “I don’t want to go back.”

Silence falls, heavy like uncut marble. They continue to stare at each other, neither of them willing to lose their silent battle, even when Bucky’s arctic eyes narrow with suspicion. Or when Steve lifts one of his brows in turn.

“Really, now?” It comes out disbelieving, Bucky’s tone a shallow cut just above Steve’s artery, but the twitch of red lips soothes the twinge just as fast.

“You don’t believe me?” Steve’s challenge is a nip of warning, but it only makes Bucky’s smile widen and show teeth.

“You can’t lie for shit, Rogers.”

Steve folds his arms, suddenly too thick and uncomfortable, across a chest that carries a never stopping heart under unyielding bones. He loves yet hates how Bucky seems to live under his skin, seeing through him down to his very core. A part of him wants to protest, to stick to half-truths, but the risk of losing Bucky to the fissure straining between them is too high to chance.

“It’s not a lie,” he tries with a little shrug and an almost smile.

“But it’s not the truth either.”

Steve keeps his gaze on Bucky as he asks, “Can I sit?”

It still takes Bucky a moment too many to nod, but it’s a good sign. Just like the way he instinctively leans towards Steve before he catches himself is. Steve hides his smile and offers a slight tilt of his own shoulders, the gravity natural and soothing in a way words never can. They stay there, leaning against a tree just like Steve did earlier, their bodies aligned to face away from each other but still close enough to feel the heat of their bare skin.

“I don’t want to go back,” Steve repeats, looking at the mouth of their home and the shadowy gloom behind it.

“You said already,” Bucky cuts in before he can continue, making Steve roll his eyes and bump their shoulders together.

“Yes. And I don’t. But––”

“Ah, here comes the infamous but!” And now Bucky is just being a little shit to grate on his nerves, Steve’s sure of it, but he clenches his jaw and doesn’t rise to the bait.

“ _But_ starting a new life somewhere… not in a cave could be good,” he finishes, tilting his head back towards to early morning sky, not looking at his best friend.

Bucky’s silence leaves Steve’s heart to stutter and stumble through an already lost race before Bucky sighs and his fingers clamp around the back of Steve’s neck, pulling his head down onto Bucky’s shoulder.

“You’re such a fucking punk, Stevie.”

Those words don’t heal the raw wound in Steve’s heart instantly, but they soothe the tears on its surface enough to let Steve sink into Bucky’s touch and take the reply for the olive branch it is.

It’s not an outright yes, but it’s a start.

 

 

 

 


End file.
